Newsflash Archives > Prominent Historian Urges Church: "Speak the Truth in a Time of Evil" (April 8/06)

Prominent Historian Urges Church: "Speak the Truth in a Time of Evil"

- by William Doino, Jr.

Calling upon the Catholic Church to "speak the truth in a time of evil," leading British historian Michael Burleigh has spoken out about the grave threats now facing Western civilization, and exhorted the one religious institution he believes can help to "stand tall" and live up to its ideals.

The comments from Burleigh, a prize-winning historian from Great Britain, came in an exclusive interview with Inside the Vatican. In his wide-ranging and extensive conversation, Burleigh, aged 50, discussed his hopes for the revival of Christianity, to be led by an invigorated papacy, and the challenges confronting the modern world.

Burleigh is the author of "Earthly Powers" (Harper-Collins), published this month in America, the first of a two-volume history of religion and politics, from the French Revolution to the present; the second volume "Sacred Causes," is to appear later this year. After "Earthly Powers" was released in the UK last Fall, it garnered rave reviews, with the "Sunday Telegraph" calling it "a hugely ambitious intellectual undertaking, but one that succeeds magnificently...The author is a scholar who is clearly at the height of his (very considerable) powers." The Independent commented: "'Earthly Powers' can only cement Michael Burleigh’s reputation as one of the leading historians of our time. It is brilliantly wide-ranging and profoundly rewarding." And the "Chicago Tribune" greeted its American publication by calling it "well-informed and refreshingly provocative...'Earthly Powers' should be required reading for anyone who understands that religion and politics, even when separate, can never be divorced."

Burleigh spent twenty years studying modern Germany, publishing half a dozen books on the subject. Now he has expanded his research to include the whole of Europe. One of the main reasons he wrote his two-volume study, he says, is to counter those historians who have deliberately minimized or discounted the role religion has played in shaping great events. Among those Burleigh finds wanting in this regard are the Marxists Eric Hobsbawm and Tony Judt. Hobsbawm, a veteran Stalinist ideologue, carries a reputation far outweighing his talent, and is intensely hostile toward people of faith. When the Canadian cultural critic Michael Ignatieff asked Hobsbawm, on British television, whether 20 million deaths would have been justified if the proposed Communist utopia had been created as a consequence, Hobsbawm replied, without hesitation,"Yes." More recently, the British émigré Tony Judt, now teaching in America, published "Postwar: A History of Europe," which gives John Paul II almost no credit for helping defeat Soviet Communism, and ending the Cold War. But as Burleigh noted, even the secular Yale historian John Lewis Gaddis hails John Paul II’s contributions in his new history, Cold War. Moreover, the recent investigative report, commissioned by the Italian parliament, that the Soviet Union was behind the 1981 assassination attempt against John Paul II, makes Judt’s claims about the late pope’s supposed non-involvement in the collapse of the Soviet Empire preposterous. "The Communists certainly saw John Paul’s Christian witness as a major force, even if Judt doesn’t," says Burleigh, cuttingly. He also said he thinks this push to read religion out of history has failed, pointing to the enduring stature of such ecclesiastical scholars as Owen Chadwick, Edward Norman and Hugh McLeod, and the renewed interest in the supernatural by secular historians David Blackburn and Ruth Harris, who’ve written sympathetically about Marian apparitions at Marpingen and Lourdes, respectively. Although Hobsbawm remains "something of a guru to secular academics," said Burleigh, his historical views are slowly in the process of being consigned to oblivion--history is a merciless avenger of ideologues--and his influence is therefore on the wane. As for Judt, while his massive tome "is learned and informed in many respects, it is not likely to have any real lasting value" in light of its astonishing omission of the religious factor. "The book merely reflects the biases of the ‘Left university.’"

Describing his own perspective, Burleigh says he has been as influenced by literature as anything else; and thinks the arts have a great deal to teach us, but are often overlooked. " I am writing about the history of Europe, but one that has been shaped, molded and defined by literary giants. These men understood the world and human psychology better than most of their contemporaries, and so it is to them we must go if we want to gather an accurate picture of the times they lived in. Personally, I’ve been very influenced by British poets--Shakespeare, Dryden, Pope, Byron, Tennyson and T.S. Eliot; the great Russian novelists like Dostoyevsky, but also the liberal and conservative philosophers Berdayev and Semyon Frank, down to Solzhenitsyn. These luminaries, together with contemporary artists, like the novelists Michel Houellebecq and V.S. Naipaul, have more to say about our current predicament than most sociology departments ever could." Various conservative thinkers, notably Edmund Burke, the great foe of the French Revolution, and the (recently deceased) pundit Maurice Cowling, have also had an impact upon Burleigh’s formation. The seminal books of historian Norman Cohn, the political scientist Eric Voegelin and the eminent Catholic historian Christopher Dawson, have registered deeply, too. Burleigh believes that Cohn’s work--ranging from the apocalyptic fanaticism of the Middle Ages, to the origins of the infamous anti-Semitic Protocols of the Elders of Zion tract--have relevance to our own times: "We moderns tend to think of our predecessors as poor, benighted souls, enchained in superstition and prejudice. But what Cohn reminds us is that our times are just as prone to conspiratorial thinking and religious hysteria as anything that went before us. The Good Book has another way of saying this: ‘Pride Goeth before the Fall.’" Voegelin, too, says Burleigh, is a unique thinker: a refugee from Nazi Germany, he believed that totalitarian movements like Nazism were political religions, filling the void left dangerously empty by faithless societies. The only power which could thwart them, Voegelin argued, was a genuinely transcendent religion, which refused to try to create heaven on earth, and therefore brought sanity and stability to this world, in preparation for the next. Dawson, whom Burleigh calls a "religious genius," took Voegelin’s position a step further, and argued that religion was the only force capable of advancing civilization, and, as a committed Catholic, argued for an explicitly Christian culture. In 1942, at the height of the Second World War, Dawson published "Judgment of the Nations," one of his most powerful works, arguing that the crisis then engulfing the world was essentially spiritual: "The old landmarks of good and evil and truth and falsehood have been swept away and civilization is driving before the storm of destruction like a dismasted and helmless ship. The evils which the nineteenth century thought that it had banished forever--proscription and persecution, torture and slavery and the fear of sudden death--have returned and with them new terrors which the past did not know. We have discovered that evil too is a progressive force and that the modern world provides unlimited prospects for its development."

Having spent the last five years studying European civilization and its discontents, Burleigh is convinced that we now face a new crisis--but one that provides an opportunity for the Church to take charge. "Every generation faces turmoil; every generation is challenged, and ours is no different," he says. "Today we face a terrifying array of explosive issues: religious extremism and terrorism in all its monstrous forms, weapons of mass destruction; the culture of death, beginning with unrestricted abortion-on-demand and ending in easy euthanasia; continuing war, genocide, disease, famine, persecution...horror is all around us." Yet Burleigh believes the Churches, and in particular the Catholic Church, can serve as a lighthouse to society, leading people out of the darkness, and back to the transcendent truth about God and man. The Church’s teaching about the dignity of human life, at every stage of its existence; its insistence on objective truth and the four last things--death, judgment, heaven and hell; its opposition to militarism yet rejection of outright pacifism in a dangerous world; its belief in the compatibility of faith and reason-all of these facts, said Burleigh, place the Roman Catholic Church in a unique and pivotal position to make a real difference. Despite the recent scandals in the Church, and what he calls a "pathological anti-Catholicism" attempting to exploit them, the time is right for the Church of Rome to act: "No other religious body has the strength, the respect and the authority to influence the world for the better. The Church’s charitable work is truly humbling, as is the courage of someone like the archbishop of Bulawayo in Zimbabwe, Pius Ncube, who has stood up to a tyrannical dictator in the face of death threats."

Historical examples abound, said Burleigh, of the Catholic Church rising to the occasion when its influence was needed most. He cited three: Pius IX’s resistance to the encroachments of nineteenth-century secular governments; the Church’s fight for freedom during the anti-Catholic Kulturkampf in Germany; and, later, in the same country, the Church’s struggle against Hitler, exemplified by the anti-Nazi encyclical, "Mit brennender Sorge." "The Catholic Church has a reputation as a very conservative, even reactionary force in the nineteenth century," said Burleigh. "But while that is true, to a considerable extent, and while one can lament some of the ways the Church acted and the forces it aligned itself with then, what has not been emphasized--particularly by modern historians--is the often progressive, even liberating role the Church played during those years." Indeed, describing the all-out assault waged against the papacy during the reign of Pius IX, "Earthly Powers" comments:

"These attacks, together with the encroachments of the Italian state, prompted Pius to issue a comprehensive condemnation of contemporary errors, the eightieth of the eighty errors listed in his 1864 Syllabus (or catalogue) being that the pope should reconcile himself with progress, liberalism and modern civilization....What is not often stressed, in the customary identification of the Syllabus with its final jarring assertion, is that in article 39 the pope denounced the doctrine that ‘the State, as being the origin and source of all rights, is endowed with a certain right not circumscribed by any limits.’ The Moloch-like expansion of the modern state into areas where it had hitherto acknowledged limits was one of the most important aspects of these nineteenth century conflicts, and Catholics were not slow to draw attention to this as they sought to limit state authority....In the eyes of many...an authoritarian pope became the ultimate defender of liberty against states that liberals were pushing in a highly illiberal direction."

This, says Burleigh-along with the Church’s constant teaching that Christ gave St. Peter and his successors the power to bind and loose--was the immediate background of the Declaration of Papal Infallibility (which itself is often misrepresented, and very limited in scope, properly understood)--not some wild power grab by an unhinged pope. Though the recently-beatified Pius IX is still assailed and even caricatured today, Burleigh, without overlooking that pontiffs faults, sees him as one of the first world leaders to resist the seeds of modern totalitarianism, then being planted in the soil of Europe.

Later that century, when Bismarck’s regime launched its notorious anti-Catholic Kulturkampf in Germany, Catholics, led by their pastors and bishops, immediately fought back. And guided by the steady hand of the Church, they did so without resorting to revolution or fanaticism. As Burleigh writes:

"Instead of limited arrests and prosecutions leading to a victory of state over Church, the clumsy enforcement of the Kulturkampf legislation resembled pushing a stick into a hornet’s nest. For Catholic Germany (and Catholic Poland) mounted an impressive counter-campaign of civil disobedience and passive resistance....Germany’s Catholic community participated robustly in the political system to defend themselves. During the Kulturkampf, the [Catholic] Centre Party’s vote doubled, and their representation in the Reichstag rose from sixty-three seats in 1871 to ninety-three by 1877. Capable Centre Party leaders, such as Mallinckrodt or Windthorst, used their parliamentary platform to inveigh against the anti-Catholic legislation, despite the efforts of the President of the Reichstag to ignore their presence whenever they rose to speak. Despite being slight and virtually blind, Windthorst routinely got the better of Bismarck in debate, where the latter seemed blustering, bullying and tetchy. Centre Party leaders repeatedly exposed the hypocrisy of their liberal opponents by championing the freedoms that the latter preferred to overlook. They were also steadfast in opposing Bismarck’s draconian Anti-Socialist Law, seeing parallels between their own fate and attempts to stigmatize an entire class. Although secular liberal Jews were enthusiastic supporters of the Kulturkampf, the Centre Party leadership resisted attempts by individual Protestant and Catholic anti-Semitic demagogues to lure them on board platforms allegedly based on supra-confessional, or just ‘Christian,’ values that thinly camouflaged anti-Semitism."

The Catholic Church’s record on anti-Semitism, particularly during the Nazi period, has been repeatedly attacked, even to the point of demonization. But Burleigh, who is one of the world’s leading authorities on Nazi Germany --his acclaimed books, The Racial State and The Third Reich: A New History, have become modern classics on the subject--rejects that view. If you trace Catholic teaching from the late nineteenth century through the early twentieth, he said, what you find are repeated, emphatic and unyielding condemnations of racism, anti-Semitism, warmongering and exaggerated nationalism from the highest officials of the Church, exactly the ingredients which made Nazism possible. The Ten Commandments and the Golden Rule--do unto others as you would do unto yourself--were linchpins of Catholic education; and the fact that some Catholics, of all ranks, can be found who failed to live up to those teachings, who, at times, even flagrantly violated them, does not detract from the overall witness of the Church against these evils. The true record of the Church’s stand against Hitler and the Holocaust will be examined in detail in "Sacred Causes," in which Burleigh intends to set the record straight, and correct the errors of certain anti-Catholic polemicists. In his interview with ITV, Burleigh warned against "vulgar and sweeping generalizations" about "the Church" as if there was no difference between anti-Nazi Catholic soldiers, from Britain and America, risking life and limb against the Third Reich; heroic priest-rescuers doing the same in France and Italy--and renegade clerics in Croatia, Austria or Slovakia, attacking Jews and encouraging collaboration. The German Catholic Church under Hitler has already been critiqued-sometime sharply-- by Burleigh in The Third Reich and Ethics and Extermination, but even there he finds aspects of their record to applaud. In particular, their decision to read the great anti-Nazi papal encyclical Mit brennender Sorge from their pulpits in 1937 was a tremendous act of courage; and he is even more impressed with the two men most responsible for it: Pope Pius XI and his Secretary of State (and successor), Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli, later Pius XII. Burleigh has little toleration for historians who criticize the encyclical because it didn’t condemn anti-Semitism "by name"; or who argue that the encyclical merely defended narrow "Church interests;" or that it came "too late." As already mentioned, the Church was on record condemning racism and anti-Semitism before the Nazis even came to power in 1933-an official Vatican declaration against both was issued in 1928 -- so no one can say that Germans weren’t warned ahead of time by the Catholic Church. And in fact, added Burleigh, for all the criticisms that have been made against the Church during the first four years of Nazi rule (1933-1937)--and even then there was considerable resistance -- the 1937 encyclical preceded Kristallnacht by one year, the Second World War by two, and the Wansee Conference (where ‘the Final Solution’ was designed) by five years. "Mit brennender Sorge was one of the great encyclicals of the twentieth century, and it still packs a tremendous wallop when you read it today. It did not simply defend ‘Church interests.’ It unequivocally condemned racism and the deification of the state, and defended the human rights of all--including, implicitly and undeniably, those of Jews. It had a stirring impact, both in Germany and abroad. It came out much sooner than virtually any other major government and institutional condemnation of Nazism, and right when appeasement was in the air. Those who try to diminish it, either haven’t read the papal encyclical, or are being intellectually dishonest about it."

Although Burleigh is at pains to stress he is not in a position to offer the Holy Father anything so presumptuous as formal ‘advice,’ he did, when asked, offer five suggestions he believes could strengthen the Church’s mission:

"First, the Church should stop apologizing for its past and vigorously defend the Christian heritage, especially the unique Catholic contribution to it. Engaging in repeated self-flagellation only serves to make the Church the doormat of history, and invites contempt. The Western heritage, for all its failings, is something to be cherished, not constantly attacked. The reason political religions have defaced mankind is precisely because too many Christians, unwilling to defend their faith, permitted radical anti-Christian ideologues to undermine the fabric of civilization. History has proven that the most dangerous place to be is in a radically secular, post-Christian society. The absence of faith creates a vacuum which extremists are all too ready to fill. As the anti-Nazi writer Ernst Junger famously remarked: ‘Deserted altars are inhabited by demons.’

"Second, the Church should never compromise its core teachings and essential beliefs. One of the most admirable qualities about the Church of Rome is its resistance to fads, unnecessary changes and spontaneous ‘innovation.’ I am not talking here about genuine progress , or about the authentic development of Christian doctrine, which has always been a part of Catholic orthodoxy--I’m talking about the constant, spurious demands to force the Church to re-invent itself--changes which, if accepted, would make the Catholic Church unrecognizable, a pale imitation of itself. The surest way for the Catholic Church to become irrelevant would be to follow the path of the Anglican Churches, and become a mere echo chamber of secular society. Today, the Anglican community, save for a few brave exceptions, has become an embarrassment. This once distinguished body has made so many doctrinal and moral compromises, and become so fractured, that no one pays any attention to it. The archbishop of Canterbury recently visited the Sudan and said nothing about genocide in Darfur- a remarkable omission, but one not surprising coming from an Anglican divine. We have the World Council of Churches constantly talking about the sensitivities of women and the gay community; but, ironically, many gays themselves are far more terrified of Islamic extremism than conservative Christians, who, while firmly opposing the practice of homosexuality on moral grounds, respect all gays as children of God; they don’t want to cut their heads off. Women, especially young women, are particularly alarmed about the threat militant Islam poses; they realize that they will be on the sharp end of the stick if the jihadists continue to make advances. One only has to consider the brutal treatment of women meted out in many Islamic lands: before the United States and NATO overthrew the Taliban in Afghanistan, women caught putting on makeup were taken to soccer fields and executed; and the displaced Taliban are still killing anyone presumptuous enough to teach girls in schools. But none of this seems to have occurred to the politically-correct mainline Protestant churches, who refuse to stand up to anti-Western militants, and refuse to recognize a real danger like we now see developing in Iran. Roman Catholicism, in contrast-- for all its troubles-- has a great deal more institutional courage, and therefore continues to win adherents and converts--not least of whom are many disgruntled Anglicans, finding a steady ship in troubled times.

"Third, the Holy See should step up its opposition to religious and political extremism a hundredfold. The Catholic Church, at its best, has always been universal and consistent in outlook, and Pope Benedict should continue that tradition. The selective moral indignation we see from such bodies as the World Council of Churches, who frequently condemn abuses by Western governments, but remain shamefully silent toward crimes by far worse Communist and Islamic regimes, has to be rejected. On the matter of human rights, there is an appalling hypocrisy out there, and Rome should expose it. I like the fact that the Vatican has recently served notice to intolerant Islamic governments that inter-religious dialogue is not a one-way street, and that Christians and Jews have to be treated humanely in Islamic countries if this dialogue is to continue--along with the aid that accompanies it. I also like the fact that the Vatican keeps up the pressure on Israel, to act lawfully and justly, even as it vigorously defends the right of the Jewish community against anti-Semites and terrorists. The Vatican, bearing witness to its Christian tradition, should constantly press for peace and counsel against war: negotiation, diplomacy and dialogue should always be the preferred means for obtaining world stability, but even these have their limits. Working for peace should not be confused with naïve appeasement. Sometimes inaction can invite evils more terrible and costly than a timely and just use of military force. The current threat of Iran’s nuclear program, in the hands of a truly dangerous man, presents a real challenge to the civilized world. Coordinated action between the US and its allies--in conjunction with the UN and its nuclear watchdog, the IAEA-- will be essential, especially after the controversy provoked by the Iraq War. I am opposed to any kind of premature military action against Iran, but it cannot be ruled out under all circumstances. Right now, our financial and moral support should be given to the many pro-Western Iranians working against the mullahs and extremists. I think Francis Fukuyama’s thesis about the ‘end of history’ necessarily culminating in democratic capitalism is foolish, but I also reject Samuel Huntington’s ‘clash of civilization’ scenario between Islam and the West. History and the future of world civilization is totally unpredictable. You cannot generalize about individuals or entire cultures. There are plenty of good, decent men and women in Iran and Iraq, and Afghanistan and Indonesia, who share the same basic values as Americans and Britains, and who desire the same basic things: peace, prosperity and loving families. Nobody is locked into an oppressive culture or ignorant mindset, even if they’ve been born and reared in it. People and societies change, develop and grow. We are not trapped in some kind of Hegelian-Marxist universe where the entire world is heading toward one, inexorable conclusion. We have free will; we are in control of history, not some uncontrollable cosmic force. Civilization can go one way or the other. In order to save it, we need to wage an up-front and vociferous campaign against rogue regimes and human rights abusers everywhere, employing every legal and cultural tactic at our disposal. Compared to what the West achieved in the Cold War, our present efforts are modest in the extreme. Whenever possible, the Churches, led by Rome, should support the United States, Britain and their many allies in bringing the rule of law and respect for human dignity to oppressive societies. This does not preclude the Churches from denouncing these same governments whenever they do dreadful things--like shooting an innocent Brazilian electrician in the London subway, or detaining an innocent at Guantanamo Bay.

"Fourth, the Church should reach out to Christian intellectuals, and even secular intellectuals open to the Christian tradition, particularly in Europe. There is a great deal of criticism these days about the current cultural climate in Europe, and some of it is well-deserved: we know that the Christian birth rate has plummeted, and that an unabashed-and sometimes militant--Islam is on the rise. Still-and I say this as someone who lives in Europe, and is keenly aware of its deficiencies-- there are a good number of very committed Christians here, particularly old-fashioned and newly-converted Catholics--and many of them work in important places--for example, at leading newspapers and even the BBC. There are signs that even heavily secularized countries like the Netherlands, infamous for the legalization of euthanasia, have started to repudiate the ideas of the 1960’s, and begun to realize that something much stronger and deeper is needed to confront the dangers of our times. It would not be an exaggeration to say that many Dutchmen, confronted by the abuses of the euthanasia brigade, and the brutal killing, by a jihadist fanatic, of filmmaker Theo van Gogh, (descendent of the painter), who dared to criticize Islamic extremism, have woken up, and are in the process of re-discovering their Christian heritage. If you want to see the possibilities for Europe’s future, study the Netherlands...Christian intellectuals may currently be in the minority in Europe, but they are in key positions of power and influence, and they should be encouraged in what is a lonely path. Pope Benedict, who is himself an intellectual, is absolutely right to cultivate them, and bring them into the conversation about a renewed and revitalized Europe. He also recognizes the promise of engaging secular intellectuals who have a deep reservoir of respect for the Catholic tradition--and might even be prospective converts themselves. I have to commend the pope for not giving up on his fellow Europeans. Benedict realizes, unlike Europe’s current cultural despisers, that there will be no renewal of worldwide Christianity if Europe, the home of Christendom, is abandoned.

"Finally, the Catholic Church should stick to proclaiming its principles in universal terms, and resist the temptation to try to micromanage the world’s affairs. The Vatican, for all its merits, is simply not equipped to deal with all the complexities of the modern world. Clergy are not especially qualified to talk about economics, diplomacy or military strategy and they should have the humility to listen to people who are qualified. The Church can never cede its authority over fundamental moral and religious teachings, but, when it comes down to more worldly issues, it needs the help and support of lay intellectuals and specialists. Incorporating and applying the truths which the Catholic Church believes in is a necessary but often-difficult, even perilous, task. It is one thing for the papacy to urge peace and to condemn injustice; and to warn all believers in public office that there will be an ultimate accounting for their actions. It is quite another to lay down or dogmatize precise policy prescriptions for every issue under the sun--especially if clergy are no less immune to what they read in the newspapers or see on TV than anyone else. Pope John Paul II, I think, understood this well, going as far as he could in trying to shape the consciences of modern politicians and statesmen, but also drawing back when appropriate. That is why his pontificate was so impressive. Pope Benedict XVI’s early pronouncements, which exhort world leaders to act in a Christian manner, without injecting the Church too deeply into ongoing policy disputes--lest it lose its distinctive Christian witness--is evidence that he wants to expand the legacy of John Paul II. In that respect, and looking at it, subjectively, as a 50-year-old British historian of modern Europe, I believe the pontificate of Benedict augurs very well."

Postscript: "Earthly Powers" is now available in bookstores, and online at http://www.amazon.com, as are Burleigh’s other books mentioned above. For more on the life and work of this distinguished historian, ITV’s readers are encouraged to visit Burleigh’s website: http://www.michaelburleigh.com

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